Tag Archives: Bremerton

In 2007, the Department of Corrections embarked on a
transformation in the way it releases offenders to the
community. Ordered by the State Legislature to stop
“dumping” felons into Tacoma, Spokane, and other pockets of
urbanity in the state, DOC was mandated to send prisoners back to
their “county of origin” —
the place of their first felony conviction.

There are some exceptions, mainly if victims are uneasy about an
offenders’ return to the community. But they can also go to another
county if they have family or “other sponsoring persons or
organizations that will support the offender.”

In 2012, about three out of every four inmates whose first
felony was in Kitsap come back here after prison, according to DOC
statistics.

While they’re coming back to Kitsap, it appears they’re
increasingly concentrated in Bremerton. But corrections officials
say that clustering actually serves public safety best.

To search and find out where every offender went home to in 2012
— and if they deviated from their county of origin — follow this
link.

The Bremerton city attorney has dismissed about 20
simple possession marijuana cases in the wake of Initiative 502’s
passage.

City Attorney Roger Lubovich said his office was waiting until
Dec. 6, an ounce of pot for adults 21 and older became legal in the
state. He said the dismissals were limited to those charged with
just misdemeanor possession, and not in cases where multiple crimes
were charged.

Bremerton’s municipal court handles misdemeanor cases that occur
within the city. The Kitsap County Prosecutor’s office handles all
felony cases in the county and misdemeanor cases outside Bremerton.
The office has a contract for prosecutorial services with Port
Orchard, Poulsbo and Bainbridge Island.

Interestingly, under the new state law, up to an ounce, or about
28 grams, is legal to possess for adults 21 and over. That means
it’s still a misdemeanor to have between 28 and 40 grams of pot
(that is, unless it’s in food or liquid form). Above 40 grams is
still a felony.

The city’s lawyers have been digging into the case to figure out
what happened. While the lawsuit continues, here’s what they’ve
found out thus far: the Escalade was seized in a 2003 coke bust
and, per Washington law, forfeited to the police department.

Police checked with the Washington State Department
of Licensing to see if it was stolen.

“There was no evidence that the vehicle was stolen,” Bremerton
Assistant City Attorney Mark Koontz said in a statement. “The
police department eventually sold the vehicle at auction as
authorized by state law.”

It wasn’t until summer 2011 that police here found out the
Washington State Patrol had seized the SUV, finding it was stolen.
State patrol officials informed the city the Escalade was stolen
off an auto dealer’s lot in Canada in 2002, before it landed
in Indiana, Missouri, Michigan and finally, Washington.

Much mystery still shrouds the how and why it went state to
state, as it was never reported stolen in that time, city attorney
said.

But state troopers were able to uncover its identity by finding
more obscure locations of its Vehicle Identification Number (VIN).
The number had been falsified in its more obvious locations on the
dash board in in the driver’s side door.

Koontz said rarely does local law enforcement have specialized
training at finding hidden VIN numbers and believes
“the police department acted reasonably,” in backgrounding the
SUV before auctioning it off.

“Even so, the city is hopeful that it can reach a resolution to
this matter to the satisfaction of all parties,” he said.

I’ve not yet heard back from the lawyer for the plaintiff in the
case, but I’ll let you know when I do.

THE BACKGROUND: A deputy prosecutor will stand in on behalf of
the state in Kitsap County’s traffic court for the first time this
afternoon.

The move was a part of Kitsap County Prosecutor Russ Hauge’s
plan to boost revenues during the county’s budget discussions
last fall. He told the county commissioners having a prosecutor to
help present the case of the police who wrote the ticket could lead
to about $148,000 in additional revenue.

Up until now, Hauge told the commissioners that “if you know the
magic words to say,” tickets would be dismissed without an argument
from prosecutors — because no prosecutor was ever in court.

Another program aimed at relicensing motorists charged with
suspended driving — before almost always reduced to a $124 ticket —
also begins today. Drivers will now face a $250 fine under a
so-called “diversion” program. The good news for defendants,
however, is it is a pathway to becoming licensed again, prosecutors
argued. That program could bring in more than $356,000, Hauge
argued to commissioners.

The programs only affect Ktsap County District Court — not in
courts in Poulsbo, Port Orchard, Bremerton or Bainbridge
Island.

A story about the first day of the two programs will be posted
later today.

“This week, nine middle school students in Bremerton were
hospitalized after popping prescription pills some of the students
brought from home,” Inslee said in a release. “Our communities need
all the options available to them to combat this problem.”

“Passing the Safe Drug Disposal Act is a big win for Washington
families,” said Rep. Inslee. “Prescription drug abuse is a
growing plague in our communities. This week, nine middle
school students in Bremerton were hospitalized after popping
prescription pills some of the students brought from home.
Our communities need all the options available to them to
combat this problem. The Safe Drug Disposal Act will give
them a common sense option to easily and safely get rid of leftover
prescription medication.”

Prescription drug abuse is a growing problem in Washington state
and around the country. Between 1999 and 2006, the number of
fatal poisonings involving prescription drugs more than tripled
across the United States. Prescription drug overdoses have
now surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of accidental
deaths in Washington state. Three in five teens say
prescription pain relievers are easy to get from parents’ medicine
cabinets and over half of prescription drug abusers get the
medicines from a friend or relative.

“Drug overdoses are now the #1 cause of accidental death in
Washington State.
In many areas, including Snohomish County, prescription drugs are
involved in a majority of overdoses,” said John Gahagan, Vice-Chair
of the Science and Management of Addictions (SAMA) Foundation. Mr.
Gahagan’s son, Sean, died of a prescription drug overdose. “Whether
left unused in medicine cabinets, tossed in the garbage or flushed
down the toilet, these drugs represent a danger to the health of
our youth and the health of our environment. Rep.
Inslee’s bill is a critical step in support of efforts to ensure
that unneeded controlled substances are securely collected from
homes and disposed of safely.”

The Safe Drug Disposal Act would allow local agencies and
organizations to set-up and run safe drug disposal efforts, like
drop-off boxes and mail-in programs, in accordance with future DEA
regulations. Groups, authorized by the Attorney General would
be able to accept controlled substances for the purpose of
disposal. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) would be able to
issue rules regarding drug take back programs. The bill also calls
for a new public awareness campaign to educate citizens about the
dangers of prescription drugs.

Until now, there has been no safe way for consumers to dispose
of unwanted prescription drugs. Under current law, consumers
are prohibited from giving unneeded, unused or expired drugs to
anyone besides law enforcement.

Rep. Inslee worked with many local, regional and national
organizations to craft the language of the Safe Drug Disposal Act.
In Washington state, local agencies and community groups like
Group Health and Bartell Drugs have tackled this problem head-on
and developed successful pilot safe drug disposal programs.
Bartell Drugs provided the first take-back locations in
Washington’s pioneering Unwanted Medicine Return program and
continues to expand locations at its stores in King , Pierce and
Snohomish counties.

“Bartell’s understands the need for the safe and environmentally
sound disposal of prescription drugs,” said George D. Bartell,
Chairman and CEO of family-owned, Seattle-based Bartell Drugs. “The
Safe Drug Disposal Act will play an important role in safeguarding
our environment, reducing abuse and saving lives. We heartily
applaud Representative Inslee’s efforts behind this bill.”

This week, the Washington Association of Sheriff’s and
Police Chiefs (WASPC) released their annual report on crime in this
state. I’m working today to analyze the numbers and get
the thoughts about them from our local law enforcement leaders.

For the county, here’s the overall trends:

Violent crime (murder, rape, robbery, assault) in the county
fell about four percent, from 1,103 reported incidents to
1,060.

Property crime (theft, burglary, ect.) in the county, too, fell
almost five percent, from 6,465 incidents to 6,170.

I’ve posted the report below, so you can see for yourself. I’ll
be updating this entry throughout the rest of the day with tidbits
and stats on each of our communities.

Love them or hate them, red light cameras generate a lot
of talk. But in Orange County, California, they’ve now
taken a hit from the judiciary.

An appellate panel of judges has ruled such photos and video
taken by the cameras is inadmissible, according to a story in the
Orange
County Register. Their rationale? No officers saw the offense
with their own eyes, and the company that runs the cameras didn’t
testify against the offenders in court.

In remarkably coincidental fashion, at the same time a suspect
ate a gram and a half of meth as Kitsap County Sheriff’s deputies
investigated a drug deal, Bremerton police were heading to a Sixth
Street cafe for a report of a man trying to steal things from their
bathroom.

The cops found him Friday night “sweating profusely,” with the
bathroom in a state of disarray. Police reported that he’d told
them he’d “smoked a twenty sack and swallowed a forty sack of
meth.” He began going into convulsions, officers said.

Darcy Himes, spokeswoman for Harrison Medical Center, said the
man was treated and released from the hospital early Saturday
morning.

It goes without saying that ingesting meth in any form is
risky and
dangerous. But eating it? Wikipedia says — and I’d take this
with a grain of salt — it’s
actually the safest way to ingest it. But from Kitsap’s oddly
timed examples here — requiring hospital trips — I’d say we have
some anecdotal evidence to refute that.

“I started working in Bremerton as a police officer in the
summer of 1988. I worked a lot on foot downtown in the beginning,
and spent the next eleven years working some form of night shift,
with three of those assigned to the gang unit when gangs hit their
high water mark.

Two years ago, as I stood at First Street and Washington Avenue
at 9:45 p.m. on a pleasant summer night, it hit me just how far we
have come. I could visualize the brawls that spilled out of
the numerous bars. I still remember hearing and seeing all
available Bremerton, (Kitsap) County and (Washington) State units
gathering to quell the mini-riots. I remember a sailor slumped
against the wall of the old Popeye’s Tavern after having just been
shot. The guy in the trench coat with the shotgun running down
Front Street. Knife fights. Cat fights. You name it.

That vision was interrupted by a little girl and her parents
walking by eating ice-cream cones. All the bumps and bruises and
trips to the ER suddenly seemed worth it. We had fought to keep the
peace on the streets and now they are peaceful, at least most
nights. The police department formed a gang unit in the early 90’s
to combat violent gang issues. We took officers and took aim at the
biggest problem in the city, untying them from responding to 911
calls. And it worked.

Bremerton has some factors working against it, but the one thing
it has had as long as I have been here is men and women who think
outside of the box and are creative problem solvers. We have never
had the equipment other departments have, or the number of
officers. Instead we have had more calls and higher crime rates
than those well-to-do agencies, so we have adapted and
overcome. I remember listening to a commander from another
agency bemoaning his lack of budget and manpower issues. When I
showed him our budget, manpower and call volume his jaw dropped:
“How do you guys do it?” he asked.

In 2005, when Chief Craig Rogers took over, we still had the
dubious distinction of being number one most violent city in
Washington per capita, three years running in at least the top
three. Rogers’ focused policing program, working to put extra
officers on the street and untie them from going 911 call to 911
call, has paid big dividends. Our violent crime rate has dropped
significantly.

The other program that has impacted the city the most is the
landlord
notification program. We have, above all, been willing to try
new things — i.e. the
red light cameras. Like them or hate them, you have to look at
the reason we put them there, to make our streets safer. The
accident rates have dropped and we have not experienced a fatality
at our worst intersections since they went in.

With the drug culture shifting from crack cocaine to meth we
have taken on new drug issues. The city remains largely
rental-oriented and that creates unique problems as well. But I
look at where we were 23 years ago and what we have been able to
accomplish and I can honestly say we are turning the corner. We
have made so many positive impacts and changes that we can show
results for. I think the next ten years will tell the tale for
certain. And we will be here pushing the city around the corner,
dragging it if need be.”

Bremerton Police dog Tabor has been hunting suspects in
Kitsap County since 2001.

His handler’s been doing it for three decades.

On Friday, Brian Johnson, a longtime master patrol officer, said
goodbye to his colleagues. Retiring with him is Tabor, a German
Shepherd that’s developed a reputation for being relentless.

Johnson handled K9s Chase and Jake four years each before taking
on Tabor for the past nine years.

His dogs’ successes may have a lot to do with their own
abilities, but there’s no substitute for a good handler, says Billy
Renfro, Johnson’s sergeant on the third watch, otherwise known as
graveyard shift.

At his retirement Friday, Bremerton Police Chief Craig Rogers
praised Johnson for being one of the officers that assured him the
streets at night would be safe. A longtime graveyard officer,
Johnson was one of those souls that functioned best in the dead of
night.

Rogers said he never received any complaints about Johnson, who
did his job with “little oversight and supervision.”

Here are Renfro’s own words about Johnson and Tabor:

“Although PD Tabor is an outstanding K9, I think a lot of it has
to do with Brian’s approach to being a handler, and quite frankly
“listening” to what Tabor is saying during the track. Brian’s
approach is pretty low key and he doesn’t let obstacles such as
time delays, heavy foot and/or vehicle traffic in the area become
deterrents. He simply puts Tabor out and does a great job of
reading him.

I specifically recall one track of an armed robbery suspect in
the downtown area. It was raining out and there was heavy vehicle
traffic. The track went for almost an hour when Brian told me that
he was going back to work an area where he saw “Tabor” show some
interest. Lo and behold, “Tabor” located the suspect hiding
in a back yard. I have witnessed similar tracks time and time
again, and I know I speak for Third Watch and others at BPD that
Brian and “Tabor” will be greatly missed.”